The Brevard County Tourist Development Council this afternoon awarded McBride Marketing Group a two-year contract for advertising services, effective Oct. 1.

The Brevard County Tourist Development Council this afternoon awarded McBride Marketing Group a two-year contract for advertising services, effective Oct. 1.

Melbourne-based McBride emerged the winner from among three finalists, and received first-place votes from six of the nine council members. TWsquared, which has the tourism organization's public relations contract, finished second, and received three first-place votes. Evok Advertising was third, and received no first-place votes.

This was the same order of finish as when a separate panel, Tourist Development Council's Marketing Committee, earlier this month narrowed the six applicants for the contract to three finalists.

Space Coast Office of Tourism Executive Director Rob Varley said all three finalists made strong presentations. He said, although TWsquared did not win the advertising services contract, he looked forward to having a continued strong relationship with the Orlando-based agency on the public relations work.

For the past five years, the Office of Tourism ad services work was done in-house, with help from local advertising agencies on a project-by-project basis.